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I was very surprised to read Nick Welsh’s story “The Incredible Shrinking City” because my gut feeling and my daily experiences tell me that our city is becoming more congested by the day.

Apparently your data are based on the just-concluded 2010 Census. That brings up the following question: how accurate was this gigantic and expensive undertaking? Specifically, were all the illegal residents included, and if yes, how was that accomplished?

I recently tried to obtain information on that point from the county administration, but was told they had no idea how many illegal residents were among the county population of approximately 400,000. Estimates put the number at anywhere between 25,000 and 75,000.

Perhaps you could educate us by a story on this issue; I am sure many legal county residents would appreciate this information.

Or is it not politically correct to debate such a vital issue which affects every county resident in one way or another?

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If the letter writer is saying the census isn't accounting for a perceived increase in the local Hispanic population that he claims is due to illegal immigration, then I would say:

(a) The Census does not ask for residence status.

(b) The Census indicates there is indeed an increase in the Hispanic population in CA and the nation, but it is primarily driven by birthrate differentials (of US-born children), not immigration, legal or otherwise.

Spread among 18 states (CA, TX, FL, NM, AZ, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Georgia, Idaho, Wyoming, Virginia, North Carolina, etc.) the Latino birthrate has accounted for more than half of the nation's birthrate in the last decade. And during this time, the white birthrate has declined plus the existing white population has gotten much older.

Listen to this fascinating podcast, "America Looks in the Mirror with 2010 Census Data", for more info:

This really forebodes demographic, cultural, and political change in the coming decades. Best to embrace it now or risk being frustrated the rest of your life. Or think of it this way ... all these non-white (whatever that means) kids are going to be funding your Social Security payments in the future :)

Going by your "gut feeling" instead of relying on actual data is a very good way to make a fool of yourself. Just ask W.

As a census taker, I can assure you considerable effort was made to count the homeless. This was done by going to all known or suspected homeless sites such as parks, along the tracks, etc. between midnight and dawn. Additional enumeration efforts were made at shelters, parking lots, soup kitchens, etc.

How accurate was the effort? What a meaningless question. What are we supposed to do, fund another count and compare the results?

And why did you ask the county about census information? Get it on line or ask the census staff; the county is just a consumer of the data just as you are.

Finally, how in the world did you draw the conclusion that it is not politically correct to discuss the homeless problem from the fact that the county did not have the data you wanted? Sheesh.

@SezMe, homeless residents were not the focus of the article, that's another article in this issue:-)

Focus here was on illegals and the various impacts caused by them, and the fact that they are generally not counted, for obvious reasons. If you're illegal, you don't really want to stick your head out and be noticed, as a rule.

@EastBeach; no disrespect meant, but I am not interested in "embracing" racial or socio-economic homogeneity. This country is made up of a variety of human beings in all colors, sizes, shapes, religions, etc. People who come HERE from elsewhere need to "get used to it" and "embrace" it. If they aren't interested in living with a variety of people who come here to join with us and to become and be Americans, then they need to stay where they are or go somewhere else. Enough of us bowing down, falling to our knees, holding open the gate, rolling out the red carpet, feeling guilty for being American, and "embracing" it.

Finally, SB is not shrinking, it is overcrowded to the point of being dangerous. 10 pounds of stuff in a 5 pound sack, so to speak. Too many people, not enough resources. Artificially inflated costs of housing, food, services, etc. Locals get pushed out, big money and investors move in, gentrify, suck up the affordable housing stock, replace it with commercial and luxury construction, rents and purchase prices soar, wages stagnate, regular folks end up homeless or living double and tripled up in overpriced ghetto housing while the rich get richer and hide behind their iron gates and fences in their McMansions, traffic is a nightmare of SUV's, rude bicyclists, and terrified pedestrians all crammed together in a very poorly-planned maze of streets, and voila! Santa Barbara!

I remember when I lived in Mission Canyon the numbers of vehicles on the street where I lived increased dramatically during the 1990's and I know for sure that the house next door to me was renting illegally. My mom went to the authorities with this and they pretty much told her that they would do what they could but very little came of it after much back-and-forth conversations. Our neighborhood went from a nice bucolic area to becoming an appendage of Isla Vista in a few short years. I wonder if the census counts those renters?

East Beach, I will address your comment "Best to embrace it now or risk being frustrated the rest of your life. Or think of it this way ... all these non-white (whatever that means) kids are going to be funding your Social Security payments in the future :)"

What you are not taking into account--nor is anyone else supporting this way of thinking, is that what we are seeing is the transformation of the U.S. from being a developed nation of skilled, literate people, to one which is watching its populace becoming increasing low-skilled and semi-literate. As the percentage of low-skilled people grows, the already disparate doctor-to-patient ratio will continue to grow and when people start dying because there simply are not enough doctors/nurses to care for them, you won't be smiling. anymore.

One can talk about health care ad infinitum but if our schools aren't producing enough educated people to provide us with the doctors and nurses who can save our lives, then all else is trivial an irrelevant. The signs are already here with our overworked, stressed out doctors and nurses often making mistakes because there are not enough of them to go around to care for our population increase contributed to by an increasingly low-skilled demographic.

Methinks you've both read too much of your own ideas into my comments.

Check out the last paragraph of my comments again. The verb "embrace" refers to the previous sentence which points out we have a sea change in demographics coming due to recent & ongoing differentials in birthrates. Embracing simply means acknowledging that fact. How you act on that knowledge is up to you.

And for the record, I made absolutely zero statements that could even come close to being about "racial homogeneity" or righteously uppity attitudes amongst immigrants. Those are your own concoctions and I would thank you not to attribute any to me.

Furthermore, please don't take my attempt at injecting humor in the last sentence (did ya even *see* the smiley face?!) and turn it into some kind of "way of thinking" to be debated.

However, diving into the details, it looks like education statistics for non-whites remains subpar and would be exactly the kind of thing we collectively need to worry about given the birthrate differentials I pointed out in my first post.

I'll leave it to someone else to look at High School graduation stats.

"Nowhere in these articles did I see a finding that a primary driver is a shortage of educationally qualified students per se."

That doesn't mean it's not an issue, nor does my not addressing issues you've raised preclude their truths.

Yes, lots of issues per the medical crisis--such as medical students having to spend year after year paying off loans, but I wanted to share my perspective because no matter how you cut it, if the fastest growing demographic is not educated to the same standards as in years past, none of the statistics you provide will matter in the end.

Green cards are also being given to foreign physicians who agree to work in "underserved" communities. The answer of our government to any "shortage" of doctors among the poorly educated immigrant cohort is to import doctors from the highly-educated elite of third-world nations.

@Revisionist: I too have heard of that. The term is "brain drain". As you point out, because of the lack of educated people in this country, (thanks to our failing schools) the power structure running this country brings in doctors from other countries. Of course when they do this, it means less doctors for the people of those countries (!)

So let's see...each country's leadership in this merry-go-round simply passes the buck to each other country...brilliant!

Cottage Hospital outsources medical transcription to another country, India I believe. I would think that an organization that is intended to serve the community and claims to wish to be a positive part of it would hire locally.